Brain tumor doesn't stop this N.J. artist — it makes him better

"It can feel like your head is going to explode," Kula said, "like your eyes are being pushed out of your head."

WEST ORANGE — Arthur Bucknor remembers looking at the first few brush strokes and feeling disgusted.

It’s crap, he thought. His right hand could barely hold the brush steady.

Bucknor, a semi-professional painter who specialized in African Cubism, had sold paintings all over the world but a brain tumor, discovered in 2010, partially paralyzed his left side — and dominant hand. He was back to being a child, trying to teach his right hand what had come so naturally to his left.

It wasn’t going well. His circles were squiggly, there was no fluidity to his strokes. The most basic elements of painting eluded him. He couldn’t even color inside the lines.
He didn’t know it then, but it turned out that was the best thing that could have happened for his art.

Bucknor, 49, still does not have full use of his left hand, but after more than a year of practice, he has learned to paint with his right. The work by his left hand was technically better, more crisp and precise, but the right hand is more expressive and fluid. No longer capable of following the rules, he no longer feels bound by them. His weaker hand made him a stronger painter.

Two years after wondering if he’d ever be able to get out of bed, Bucknor is selling his art again. A few hundred dollars for one painting, a few thousand dollars for another. He held an exhibition in his home and plans another in April at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange, where he continues his recovery.

Bucknor was born in New York and grew up in Africa. He was living in Ghana in 2010, working as a disc jockey for JOY-FM, playing soul and R&B. He had pains in his neck and headaches but wrote it off to age. The pain worsened. It was affecting his mobility.

By the time he flew back to the states, to Newark Beth Israel, he could barely walk.
“They found a huge tumor,” he said. “It was ridiculous.”

The tumor pushed down on his cerebellum and caused a Chiari malformation, a structural defect in the cerebellum. Essentially, it pushed a part of his brain outside his skull. The resulting swelling and pressure damaged his nerves and cost him the use of much of his body.

“It’s pretty rare,” said Roger Kula, medical director at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System’s Chiari Institute in New York. “The top symptom is a back -of-the-head headache.”

The severity of the pain depends on how far the tip of the cerebellum, known as the tonsils, descend.

“It can feel like your head is going to explode,” Kula said, “like your eyes are being pushed out of your head.”

It took five months to recover from surgery, which removed the tumor, before Bucknor began rehab at Kessler. Sitting in his wheelchair at the kitchen table in his sister’s West Orange home, where he lives, it is easy for him to talk about those first few brush strokes, but it wasn’t always clear the story would have a happy ending.

His deep, husky voice still trails off when he remembers how he was so depressed after his surgery that he did not want to get out of bed, bathe or brush his teeth.

Bucknor had spent his 20s travelling the world. After graduating SUNY Oswego, he lived in Germany, England, Italy, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Georgia. Now the globe-trotter’s world was a single room. A nurse bathed him in bed. He couldn’t go to the bathroom without help.

What crushed him most was the inability to paint.

Bucknor had never been a professional. He painted mostly for himself, selling a few paintings here and there. It wasn’t what he did to live; it was what he lived to do.

When his left hand couldn’t lift a brush, it was as dispiriting as the inability to walk.

“I was lost,” he said. “I couldn’t figure out what I was going to do.”

Bucknor was also suffering muscle spasms. It wasn’t painful so much as frustrating. He couldn’t get his legs to do what he wanted.

Partially paralyzed artist learns to paint with his opposite handArthur Bucknor is an artist living is West Orange New Jersey. He paints with acrylics on canvas and also sculpts ceramic masks. That's his life, that's all he knows how to do. But two years ago it all came to an end. A tumor was discovered on his cervical spine which was affecting the cerebellum in his brain. The condition required surgery. Following that procedure, he was paralyzed on the left side of his body. He was once left handed, and now is learning to paint again but with his right hand. Bucknor looks to the future with great optimism. He has never felt better about himself as an artist and feels very fortunate to be where he is today despite his difficult journey. (Video by Andre Malok / The Star-Ledger)

“It was kind of a double whammy,” said David King, Bucknor’s therapist at Kessler. “Not only did he not have voluntary movement, but the muscles were contracting involuntarily.”

The therapists encouraged Bucknor to paint with his right hand, hoping it would lift his spirits.

“I can’t even write with my right hand,” Bucknor shot back. “How am I going to teach myself to paint?”

His sister and the therapists didn’t give up. They kept encouraging him to give it a try.

One day, he did. Tears dripped onto the canvass as Bucknor looked at his first few feeble attempts, but he kept going. He leaned over the kitchen table because he did not have the arm strength to lift a brush to an easel. But he kept going. When he was hungry, he put a plate of food on top of the canvass and he kept going. When the pain made it hard to focus, he kept going.

He still can’t write his name with a pen, but within a year he could create a multidimensional, layered painting, or an African-themed “Last Supper.” His physical therapy improved as well. The paintings became more alive with his body.

“Mood is a big part of trying to deal with a situation in rehab and painting was his outlet,” King said. “It kept him in a good mood. When he was not progressing physically, he was at least progressing in his painting. It really helped him get through the harder times.”

The new paintings were deep, rich and vibrant. While the old work had been more geometrically exact, the new works have a more free-flowing feel.

Picasso is thought to have said that he spent his entire adult life learning to paint like a child. In Bucknor’s injury, something similar is taking place. His paralysis, his loss of balance and dexterity, left him in an almost-child like state. It was freeing.

“To me it was striking that before there was a very polished look, nothing drawn outside the lines,” King said. “After, there is a more relaxed feel. It doesn’t have to be perfect. He can paint outside the lines.”